


Recovery

by thedas_scribe (wshall)



Series: More Than A Commander [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Other, Post-Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-29 12:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10854489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wshall/pseuds/thedas_scribe
Summary: Kaidan spends the night in Shepard's hospital room.





	1. Saving Shepard

The muffled sound of creaking metal woke her, and soon, the bite of concrete shards bore into her back caused enough discomfort to open her eyes. Everything was black, but so very bright and painful to take in. In the left half of her vision was the remnant of a flash, most likely from the explosion, and everything over it was pitch dark. She could make out the glow of a neon sign in the distance. 

A simple cerulean word in Turian script: BAR.

Marley gasped. As if taking in a sharp breath weren't painful enough, the xylophone sound of her ribs cracking upon the sudden draw of air caused her to seize forward, and that's when she realized her right leg was trapped under the rubble. It was the same leg she injured when she was tossed out of the duct where the beam met the the Citadel. 

She looked up and saw the rest of the station through the right side of her vision, broken and shattered in so many places, and Earth just below, or just above. After blinking a few times, trying to steady the parts of her eyes she could see with, she was able to affix her focus on the orbs that lined the wards. Biotic or kinetic, she wondered, bringing her hands to her lap. Her right wrist was messed up -- sprained, at least -- and the grip of her Carnifex was melted to her left, fingers locked in the plastic mess. 

There was a noise behind her, also muffled, the sound of bare feet running through water: splat splat, splat splat, splat splat. Though the flash-bang deafness muffled everything, she could hear them coming closer. And though it caused great pain to turn towards the noise's direction, she did, and spied a naked figure was running toward her, gasping for air. 

"What the --" she coughed on the blood that spewed forth with the words. *Is that a husk?*

"Marley," the muffled voice was male. Baritone voice, soft and level, albeit shaken. "Marley, it's me, Bryan. Can you hear me?"

"Oh, god..." The relief was almost as painful as the tension. "Help me," she pleaded. "Please help me." 

Bryan removed the rubble from around her leg and hoisted her off the busted concrete, then lay her on the ground nearby. He observed bubbles emitting from the left side of her smoldering base layer, just under her breast, and rolled her onto her side. She screeched in agony, but he forced her to stay in position. "You have to stay on your side. I know it hurts, baby. Your lung is punctured, and if you lay flat or roll over, you will die."

"Oh..." More coughing on more blood.

"Try not to talk -- oh shit, your hand!"

"You're *gag* naked *hack* Bryan..." she wheezed.

"Yeah, clothes apparently don't come with DNA processing. Listen, you have to save your energy, right now. I'm going to go flag a C-Sec shuttle -- they're everywhere, but this spot is hard to see. And don't move!"

The urgency in his voice confirmed her mission to stay in place. The BAR sign, even in Turian, was a calling card, almost as if the universe itself was telling her that Garrus -- and the Normandy -- was safe, where ever they were. She tried to focus on good things -- Samantha's playful challenges, the pride on Ashley's face when she showed Marley her new Spectre armor -- or even the time she showed her the training gear for ICT, and Garrus and those god-forsaken calibrations. 

It felt like forever had passed when she heard the muffled whir of a shuttle engine fly to her position. She watched the hatch open up, and Bryan, who had a blanket draped over him, leapt out with three C-Sec officers: one Salarian, one Turian, and one Asari. They began to put her on a gurney, and she howled an almost silent squeek in reaction to the sudden sharp pain. 

But like clockwork, they got her broken body into the shuttle, and the hatch closed as it sped off. 

"We're going to need to put a tube in your chest, Commander, and I'm not going to lie -- this will hurt," the Salarian explained. She nodded, and the other two officers, along with Bryan, held her body still as he jabbed a metal instrument into her side, then guided the tube into her pleural cavity. Marley immediately felt the paradoxical pressure wear away, albeit not completely, and she was still struggling to draw air on her own. "I hate to say it, but with that kind of air...you need to be intubated." 

"What's tha-- *hack* that?" 

"A ventilation tube. Again, you have to be still." She couldn't see what he was doing, since he was on the left side of her -- where the flash of white was -- but she could hear the muffled movement of a jar lid. "Something to numb up your throat. Open wide..." She did so, and the Salarian gently daubed the inside of her mouth and throat with a flavorless gel that had an alcoholic burn to it. Soon, her throat was numb, and with great precision, he inserted a plastic guide followed by a plastic tube, down into her broncial area. "Very good," he praised. "You're doing great, Commander." 

The Turian officer began squeezing and releasing the manual "breathing" apparatus, and Marley felt more relief fill her body. Marley watched him look beyond her head. "What's our ETA?" 

The shuttle pilot, whose voice signified that he was human, replied "fifteen minutes."

"Roger that," the Asari responded. "Her right tibia is broken, no need for surgery, and is set with a temp split. We have to get that grip out of her hand and apply medigel. The longer we wait, the more we jeopardize her losing her hand."

"We can't put her under, we need to stabilize her, first."

"No, we have to do it, now. Apply local anesthetic, let's go."

"But --" The Salarian did not like the idea.

"Now. Pain now means using the hand later."

Marley nodded at the Asari's idea, not that she had a say -- not that she could even speak.

"Okay, Commander, this one's going to hurt. We'll be as quick as possible so it doesn't last long."

"Brace the patient." That was the Salarian's way of saying "hold her down." 

The Turian, along with the Salarian and Bryan, all put their weight on her in key areas -- shoulders, hips, legs, as the Asari began popping each finger out of the melted grip. Then she felt a cold substance applied around the part that was bonded to the palm of her hand. Then they began peeling it off. Marley didn't mean to, but she jerked away from the Asari, and Bryan moved to hold her arm in place. "You're okay, you're okay," he reassured her as the Asari continued peeling the hardened blob of plastic off of her hand. 

Marley wanted to scream out, but the tube in her mouth wouldn't allow it. She squeezed her eyes closed, and the Turian noted a chunk of shrapnel in her cheek. Without warning, he stopped pumping the apparatus and grabbed it and yanked it out, then continued.

"I think being so close to the center of the blast is what saved her from more damage," Bryan offered.

"It seems counterintuitive," the Turian agreed, "but I think you're right," the Turian looked at the chunk of reddish metal that he sat on her chest, then back at the gaping gash on her cheek and shook his head. "She almost lost an eye, though." 

When the Asari was done peeling the remains of the Carnifex from Marley's trembling hand, she placed a wet towlette soaked with medigel in its palm and applied gentle pressure. Most of the pain went away almost immediately. "And that was the hard part, Commander," the Asari declared. "You're doing really well."

Marley noticed shadows overtaking the shuttle, signifying its entrance into a garage, and sure enough, the vehicle slowed to a stop. The hatch opened, and she was rushed into an emergency room that was already full of injured bodies, some gravely so. It was so bright in the area that she had to close her eyes against the doctors' requests. They hooked her ventilation tube to a machine, which was more measured than she wished to experience, but she was in no shape to protest. It was consistent air, something she could not physically provide for herself. A stinging in her nether regions indicated the installment of a catheter.

They bandaged her left hand after soaking it in a gel solution, at the same time removing the splints from her leg and wrist and scanning them with an overhead scanner. A thick bandage was wrapped around a flat ergonomically correct board that they sat her arm on, and they reset the bone in her leg and put a plaster cast on it that went from the top of her calf to just before her toes.

She got a purple glue treatment in lieu of stitches on her cheek, but inside her mouth she required eight stitches where she bit down somewhere along the way.

It couldn't have taken more than two hours before she was wheeled off to a private room with Bryan close behind. 

When everything was said and done, they gave Marley a sedative, much against her nonverbal protests, and she fell asleep.


	2. Helpless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan spends the night in Shepard's hospital room.

The trauma center was eerily quiet, as the four of them sat and waited. It was Miranda, Oriana, Kaidan, and Bryan Hackett, who had yet to officially introduce himself. Bryan learned on their arrival that the sisters were already on Earth, and Kaidan was askedto stay behind to assist with the storm units. 

Oriana couldn't have been more than seventeen, sitting with a frozen expression of shock upon her face, holding Miranda's keypad with a shaky grip. Miranda was talking with the nursing staff, flashing her omnitool while explaining that she knew Shepard's body better than anyone. Kaidan eventually stood up to vouch for her, and they let her in through a restricted entrance. The man was acting strong, flipping disinterestedly through an old copy of Newsweek. 

Bryan kept looking at the door-frame entrance to the waiting room, anticipating the doctor's arrival -- or anyone's arrival, for that matter -- with news that Marley was okay, or at least word of what was going to happen. He knew they had her stabilized, but once they put her in a room, there was no news. 

When the message alert on the keypad buzzed, Oriana and Bryan almost fell out of their chair in a start.

"Hello?" She said. "...yes, my sister was trying to get in touch with Hannah Shepard? Yes, yes they did -- she's in...yes...yes ma'am...okay..." She looked at Kaidan and motioned for him to go check triage for an update. He heard her tell him "hang on, Kaidan's checking."

Kaidan walked up to the triage desk, where a nurse smiled at him. "Sir, they are about to move your friend to CCU, Room 3. She is under heavy sedation, and we can only allow two guests at a time, once she gets up there. We will let you know when she's leaving, and you all can go with her to the room."

"Thank you." Kaidan nodded at her and walked swiftly back to the waiting room. "They're moving her to CCU."

Oriana repeated the information to Marley's great aunt, then hung up. "They will try to be here, tomorrow." The composure on her face quickly fell into a grimmace. "Oh, Kaidan, I don't know what to do..."

"You're doing all you can, right now. Just...we need to be patient. And...that's not my specialty." He bent down to give Oriana a hug, but instead raised her out of her seat to get a better angle on his embrace. He held her tightly in his arms, as she began to cry openly. "Ori, she's going to be okay, I just know she is! You have to be strong, right now...you can cry, but promise me you'll be strong. 'Cause I need you to be strong, right now."

"I've known her for so long, K...this is my first year not living in hiding -- she gave me this chance...I'm just...I'm lost, right now."

"Excuse me..." A dark-haired man in blue scrubs came into the waiting room. "Are you guys here for Commander Shepard?"

"Um, yes," Kaidan answered as he let Mandy go.

"Okay, um, they're taking her to her room, now. It won't be too long, and you guys can go see her." He saw Bryan and added, "Oh, your father will be here very soon." Bryan's eyes grew large, and he started to break down as well. The man suggested, "Her condition has deteriorated since she was put under, which we expected, but it is still very important to...just remember that Ms. Shepard needs as little stimulation as possible, so be sure and keep it light and easy. You might have to wait until morning, depending on her blood pressure. As her main doctor, I will be casting that judgement. But so far, everything is stable."

"Oh, you're her doctor?" Oriana lit up immediately when he said that.

"Yes, Mark Forney." He went across the room and shook her hand, and she practically tackled him with a huge hug. "Okay, okay, that's perfectly fine!"

"Thank you for helping her, we've been through a lot, and I'm just devastated, right now...oh, um, I'm Oriana Lawson, and my sister is Miranda..."

"Well, try to keep your head up. She has a room where she will have every resource available to recover. I gotta get up there to set everything up." He turned and left quickly, and Oriana looked like she had just won the lottery.

"Isn't that great?" She exclaimed, grabbing her purse and hauling Bryan out of his chair.

Kaidan wasn't ready to celebrate, yet. "We still don't know what her condition is, Ori." They walked down the hallway and into one of the visitor elevators exclusively used for the CCU floor.

"But she'll be in a room!" Oriana could hardly contain herself. "That's a great great sign!"

"I know it is, Ori." Kaidan's response was flat.

 

As the four of them exited the elevator, they could see that night had fallen on the city. "Wow," Bryan said, "we've been here five hours already..." He pulled out his messenger system on his loaned omnitool and began texting. "I'll see if I can't get a message to the Normandy. If they're out there, they'll get it eventually, we can hope."

"Man, this place is empty..." Kaidan felt alone, even with the other three there, and it was beginning to crack his fragile vigilance.

Oriana had walked ahead of them to check in with the secretary at the information desk, and then came back to them as they all sat down. "I'm going to go in, first, Kaidan." She was smiling, but there was an air of anxiety about her enthusiasm.

"That's fine. I'll wait with them." She waited for the automatic security doors to open, and then walked slowly inside. Kaidan grinned at how, with his khaki trench coat covering her down to her fishnet stockings, she looked like a prostitute walking in, and how goofy she probably felt at the same time. Or, maybe she didn't care what people thought of her. Most likely the latter of the two ideas.

"Um, Kaidan," Bryan piped up. "Should we tell her about the Normandy?"

"No. Not yet."

"Okay." Bryan started typing again.

Kaidan went to the soda machine and got three of them a soda, thinking about how nice it would be if his had whiskey in it. Then again, maybe now would be a good time to put that part of his life behind him.

About ten minutes went by, and the security doors opened. Oriana came out in tears. "Kaidan..." He jumped up to meet her halfway, and she collapsed in his arms. "It's not good. It's not good at all."

"What's going on? Talk to me, Oriana."

"She's in a coma...they have a breathing tube in her. It's it's...she's not even there..."

"Oh, God..." He was mortified at her news. The color drained out of Kaidan's body as he felt his body turn cold. It took all he had to keep from buckling, himself.

She got herself back together enough to stand up on her own, and They stood there for awhile without saying a word. Finally, Kaidan told her, "the Admiral is due to arrive for Bryan shortly. If they need to leave, would you be willing to drive them?"

She nodded crookedly, answering, "y-yeah, I can drive them."

"Okay," he smiled at her as he added his key pass to her omnitool. "I'll stay up here for the night, then. If you need to, you can go back to Zero and get some rest."

"Are you sure?"

Kaidan paused, then replied, "yeah. I got this, up here." He gently pushed her bangs out of her face, and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "You take care of you. I'll stay up here and take care of me and wait for news. I'll call you if anything happens." He went to kiss her again, but she got on her toes to catch his lips with hers, to which, he reacted with a blush. "Oh...kay?"

"I will take care of me. But you better call me, Major Alenko, for any news at all."

"Anything at all. Please be careful." He watched her and Bryan disappear into the elevator. Taking a deep breath, he sat down in one of the chairs, where he put his head in his hands and stared blankly at the tiled floor. Now that they were gone, the emptiness again filled his mind, and he felt like his body was going to float out of the room.

"Excuse me, um, Kaidan?" he looked up to see Miranda. "Hey, I noticed you're the only one here." Kaidan stood up as she spoke. "Look, they normally wouldn't allow this, but...if you want to stay in the room, tonight, you can. She's unconscious, but she is trying to hold hands with the nurses. That means she's looking for someone. So, I thought it'd be a good idea if you could stay the night in the room with her, you know, someone she knows."

"Certainly, Miri." He followed her through the security doors and to Marley's room, where she bid him a comfortable night, and then left the room.

\--

Kaidan reached between his denim-clad legs and clutched the turquoise burlap-esque seat of the heavy wooden recliner, then dragged it clumsily across the linoleum floor to the side of the bed. The beeps, buzzes, and other machine noises once again returned to fill the sterile white room as the wood ceased to scrape across the floor. Everything was in rhythm: a haunting rhythm that played a song, whose chorus was a nonverbal reminder of how fragile life is. Even more sobering to Kaidan was the consistent movement of air through the assisted breathing unit.

There was never as heavy a weight on his shoulders as he felt that night. The very reason he'd ever put any care or effort into himself was laying before him, a virtual vegetable of a human being: there had been no movement, no sign of life, nothing, other than a subdued, slow, steady breath, paced by the ventilator. The way the nurses and doctors had been talking, hope was equivalent to experiencing the life in front of him being in this state for good.

He, in all of his insincerity, felt so small that he could barely speak as he put his head in his trembling hands. “God?” He couldn't even say the word because his voice cracked. He reached to his neck, between the collar on his leather jacket, to take hold of the tarnishing silver pendant that dangled from his neck, and seared with disgust at his own mockery.

“Lover of the cruc...” his voice cracked again. He held tighter to his charm, and then took a deep breath. “Lover of the crucif...” Suddenly, Kaidan ripped the chain off his neck and threw it across the room, where it ricocheted off the wall, landing just short of the trash can. “Please!” he cried, voiceless. “I don't know anything else! I don't even know you, any more! I don't know what to ask for!” His sobs were only evident when he drew in air.

After a moment, he was able to regain what little composure he had left. “I know what I want, but I have fallen out of favor, and I am as undeserving as they come. I am not worthy of anything you could do for me, right now. Please have mercy on me. Please, I can't lose anybody else, I don't have anybody else. Please, Father, make her okay.” The tears returned as he gently took her cold, limp hand in his and softly pressed his quivering lips against the back of it. Resting his cheek against the back of her hand, he could feel her pulse. He took time to cherish each beat as he massaged warmth into her palm. She managed to feebly grip her fingers around his index finger. “M--Marley? Baby, I’m here for you. I’m here...I'm begging you. I'm not strong enough for this. I don't know what to do, I am helpless...I am helpless...I'm helpless...please help her...” His tear-soaked pleas faded as he slowly drifted to sleep, face down in the white sheets and blankets that covered and warmed his dearly beloved friend.


End file.
